This Is How It Goes
by fiona d
Summary: Tags to each episode of Derek reflecting on Casey.
1. The Room

The Room

Derek was king of the castle. He always had been. His dad was too nice, and his brother too easily intimidated, to ever challenge him on that. (Marti may have been an issue had she been a little older, but Derek figured that by the time she was big enough to give him some true competition, he'd already be out of the house.)

When his dad started getting serious about Nora and started hinting about marriage and about two new sisters, Derek didn't think they'd be a problem. Nora wouldn't do anything because she was sensitive about not upsetting the balance of their house even more than they had to, and then when he met Lizzie, like with Marti, he thought there could be some backbone there, but in the end, she was too polite to take him to the mat.

But for all the signs, he didn't peg Casey as trouble. A keener? Yeah, that was practically stamped on her forehead. A killjoy? Most certainly. But he figured she'd be polite like Lizzie and easy to bowl over.

Derek didn't like to admit when he was wrong, but WOW, was he wrong. Not only was she just as used to getting her own way as Derek was, but she would not back down. Like, at all. And just when he thought he had her figured, she goes and manipulates him into giving her exactly what she wants! Who does that? No one outfoxes Derek Venturi.

Luckily, Nora stepped in and called her on it. But Derek got a taste of what he was up against. There was a challenger for his throne. And one that he couldn't scare off, bribe, or charm.

He had a feeling, life was about to get interesting.


	2. The Fall

The Fall

This wasn't good.

She was wrecking everything. It wasn't enough that he had to live with her and listen to her stupid, girly music from the next room, and hear her harping at him every time he turned around. No, now everyone at school knew that she was his stepsister.

(He ignored the fact that he was the one who let it slip. It would have come out eventually, especially now that Emily and Sam knew. At least this way he controlled when it came out.)

And on top of that, she was giving his best friend, _his _Sammy, the googly eyes. Not that Sam would be interested. I mean, the guy had some taste. At the very least, he liked a girl who could stay upright in his presence for longer than three seconds. No, Derek didn't think he'd have anything to worry about there.

(So why did he get that tight feeling in his gut every time he saw Sam smile at her? And why did the feeling get tighter when she'd duck her head shyly and smile back at him?)

But what was the absolute worst is that she was making him feel things. Derek Venturi did not do feelings. Technically it was Lizzie with her big brown eyes staring up at him like she expected him to be some sort of good guy that initially got him, but seeing Casey in the hallway, seeing Emily try to avoid her, seeing Cory harass her, gave him an unfamiliar twinge. He thought others might call it guilt. He refused. But, regardless, the twinge made him turn Emily back down that hallway, made him pull Cory aside, made him send Sam after her when she was about to humiliate herself again.

(He also tried to ignore the feeling that spread through his chest when he saw her smile as she went into her classroom, happy, despite the snarking from the janitor. The same way he kept his smile to himself when she called him 'Dereka', happy to have gotten something on him. There was no reason that her smile should cause any feelings in him, much less warm, fuzzy ones.)

This wasn't good.

Living with Casey for little over a month was turning him into a sappy, feelings-having shell of his former self. He needed to start being a jerk again as soon as possible.


	3. The Party

The Party

That was such a close call.

Too close.

And he wasn't talking about how he almost got grounded until he was seventy before Casey stepped in and took half of the blame.

Nope, he was talking about their little encounter on the couch afterwards.

He came so close to telling her how he was starting to feel. She was smiling softly at him with those big blue eyes, and his heart started racing and for the first time ever, he wanted to tell a girl everything. Why he acted like he did, what his favourite colour was, how he couldn't stop staring at her sometimes because she was so pretty, how he was actually really happy that they got locked in the bathroom because those two hours with her were the best two hours he's spent with anyone, ever.

It was becoming unbearable, just how much she was affecting him. So, he laughed at her, convinced her that everything he had told her in the bathroom had just been part of his master plan. And then he escaped before he did anything else stupid that night.

He did feel bad. (And what the hell was up with that?) So, he agreed easily enough to taking out the garbage right before she dumped it on his head.

And with every piece of garbage he put back into the bag, he told himself to get it together. Because God help him, he wasn't even mad that she dumped the garbage on him. He thought it was cute. (Not to mention, he kind of had it coming.)

By the time he was finished cleaning the mess, he'd convinced himself that it was all a big fluke. He didn't like her. It was just he'd never been around a girl as much as he was around her. That was all it was. That much proximity to a girl his age? Of course he was feeling so confused.

Yep, that was all it was.


	4. Puppy Dog Tails

Puppy Dog Tails

She was making it really hard to hate her. Derek wanted to. He wanted her to be an unreasonable, evil witch because that would solve all his problems. And there were times when disliking her was easy. Like when she got rid of the couch. That was like demanding his room all over again.

But the thing about her was, she could admit when she made a mistake. And not only that, she'd actually _apologized_. Derek would never apologize. (Well, maybe to Marti, as long as she promised not to tell.) He figured that Casey would be the same. She was so stubborn, how could she ever admit that she wasn't right? Derek didn't get it.

And because of that, he found himself doing something nice for her. He found himself _compromising_. What the hell was wrong with him?! First he was feeling actual feelings, and now he was playing nice. Would it be long until he completed his transformation into a girl?

(And wouldn't that be a tragedy for the female population of SJST. No more Derek to ogle and a female Derek to compete against. It'd be a double-loss.)

Maybe it was this influx of estrogen into the household. Never before had the women outnumbered the men in the Venturi house. The balance of power had shifted and while Derek was still the puppet-master, his puppets were getting unruly and were nearly impossible to manipulate.

Whatever it was, he didn't like it. Casey could keep her shiny new furniture. He liked the old couch and all it's memories. After most of the family was in bed, he sat on the couch, remembering all the good times he had on it.

It was odd, though, how many times Casey's face appeared in his memories. Just when did wrestling with her on the couch become one of his favourite memories?

He preferred to leave that question unanswered.


	5. Grade Point: Average

Grade Point: Average

Derek had never in his life felt or looked like a bigger dork than on the day they did their presentation on the Shelleys. While they were getting ready for the project, he did everything Casey asked of him without complaint and that seemed to make it clear to her just how desperate he was for a good grade. But at around two in the morning, as they were finishing up, she stopped in her tracks and chirped, "Oh! Drama club!"

Even if Derek hadn't been exhausted, he wouldn't have been able to follow her thought process.

"What?"

"The Drama Club. They'll have costumes."

Derek tried to wrap his mind around what she was saying. "Like, a Frankenstein costume?"

"No, we'll dress as Percy and Mary Shelley. It'll be great!"

"No. No costumes."

She fixed him with a glare. "I thought you needed a good grade?"

"I do, but – "

"Then tomorrow morning, or I guess this morning, we're going to go to school early and raid the Drama Club's costume room."

He wasn't swayed.

She sighed, and for the first time that night, Derek realised just how much this project had tired her out, too. "Look," she said, softly, "I've done dozens of projects like this before. Dressing up as them is the type of thing that'll take this project from an eighty-five to a ninety."

That got him to give in. "Fine. We'll do the costumes."

So he let her try different hats on him and force him into different pants and shirts until she found the right outfit. And in the end it was worth it. Not just for the 90% she grubbed for them, but because of how she glowed through the whole presentation.

Yeah, a little humiliation was definitely worth that.


	6. The Wedding

The Wedding

Here was the thing: Vicky wasn't complicated. She was unpleasant. And kind of a major brat. But he didn't feel anything for her except the normal things a fifteen-year-old guy would feel about a pretty girl.

And he needed to do something. He needed some way of getting these feelings for Casey out of the way. He kept doing things unconsciously like nudging her in a friendly way or throwing an arm around her shoulders. Nothing good was going to come of that.

So that's how he ended up making out with his stepsisters' cousin on top of the washing machine.

And so maybe Vicky's long, brown hair was just like Casey's long, brown hair. And her lips were the same shape and they had the same nose. They were about the same height and their bodies were pretty similar and it was almost enough. Almost enough to pretend.

Almost.

But not really. Derek might have been the most skilled liar in London, Ontario and he was even becoming pretty good at lying to himself, but he wanted too much to believe this lie to ever really buy it himself.

The truth was, in every moment he was kissing Vicky, all he could think was that she didn't smell right. Her vanilla shampoo wasn't like Casey's citrusy scent. And the sounds coming from her weren't what he'd imagined. And something was missing. It wasn't fiery enough. Not passionate.

He was about to call an end to it when Edwin interrupted. But it was easy enough to get rid of his brother and then he was faced with Vicky again. No denying reality when he was looking right at it. But she smiled a come-hither smile and, like any hormonal teenaged boy, he followed. He threw himself into her more desperately. He was kissing a hot girl for God's sake, why was he dwelling on the details? He kissed her deep and tried to empty his mind of everything but him and her. And it almost worked. Until…

"Well, this is a change," Vicky said, pushing him away.

Derek had no idea what was going on. "What?"

"No, it's just, I've kissed a lot of guys just because Casey liked them and got them to forget about her in about ten seconds. This is the first time I've made out with a guy not even suspecting he was hung up on Casey and then realised after ten minutes of making out that he wasn't thinking of me at all."

"What? I was thinking of you." And he gave her his most charming smile.

"Believe me, Derek, I can tell if I got a guy's attention, and I didn't have yours."

"Well, I wasn't thinking of Casey. That's insane." He put enough disgust in his voice that he almost convinced himself.

She stared at him for a minute. "Okay, maybe I was wrong. It's just, you two seem to spend an awful lot of time in each others' faces. I just thought…" She shrugged. "My mistake, I guess."

"Yeah," he said, trying to let out his sigh of relief discretely. "Your mistake."

"But Derek, you might want to work things out with whoever is on your mind and kiss her, because it's not fun when you can tell a guy isn't thinking about you." Vicky flipped her hair and flounced off.

Derek buried his face in his hands. "Yeah, I'll do that."

And then he got irritated. Casey was now affecting his ability to pick up girls. He could take the occasional feeling that she induced and the fact that he was sometimes being a little nicer, but he wouldn't stand for her messing up his ability to hook up.

He went into the living room and when saw Casey talking to her aunt in the corner, all he felt was a wave of annoyance.

Good. Things were as they should be.


	7. The Poxfather

The Poxfather

First of all, Derek never knew there could anything more annoying than Casey, but it turned out he'd take a dozen Caseys over the chicken pox any day. Luckily, his spots were beginning to scab over and his main concern was keeping Marti from picking at them. She had some sort of fascination with them. It occasionally worried him how strange his baby sister was.

And it turned out, Casey wasn't always completely annoying. In fact, as an employee, she was pretty damn useful. She tripled Frankie's sales and found whole new revenue streams by targeting cliques that Derek had never even considered. Plus, she turned out to be way cooler with breaking the school code than he ever would have given her credit for.

Yep, it was safe to say that if Derek ever decided to go ahead with his world domination plans, he'd have to make Casey one of his right hand men. Woman. Whatever.

But the thing with Casey was, she was too moral and too smart for her own good. And he knew eventually she'd discover some ethically questionable practice of his and would fight him on it and that sooner or later the running of his business would consist mostly of bickering with Casey. (Kind of like how his life now mostly consisted of bickering with Casey.)

Still, it was kind of nice getting along with her for once, working together. And he might seriously consider doing more nice things for her if it meant that she'd smile at him the way she did when he gave her the new cell phone. As gorgeous as she was when he got her angry, there was something to be said for the way she glowed when she was happy.

He gave himself a shake. The pox must be making him delirious. Casey was not pretty or gorgeous or someone he wanted to spend any time with. She was a half-decent saleswoman and a perpetual pain in his ass.

And if he kept telling himself that, maybe one day he'd believe it.


	8. House of Games

House of Games

Derek had never really been challenged before. No one was going to do it at home, and at school, he could charm or intimidate his way into keeping his place as king of the hill. So, he was pretty secure in his belief that what Derek wants, Derek gets.

Until Casey…

Everything was a challenge with her. Keeping his reputation, his room, his coffee mug, the fluffy bath towel –_ everything._

But when she'd agreed to the competition over the five areas of contention, he wasn't worried. He wasn't dumb – he knew she'd try something underhanded. But Casey was new to deception. Derek, on the other hand, was a master of it.

Trying to get Edwin on their side was a smart move, but predictable. Casey and Lizzie didn't really understand how deeply Edwin's loyalty to him ran.

Except that, it turned out they did. The baby monitor was genius. Even as angry as Derek was about being played, he could appreciate a brilliant tactical move when he saw one. The truth was, if he hadn't found the monitor, Team McDonald would have triumphed.

Thankfully, he did find it and was able to use it against her. Knowing how her mind worked, he managed to outwit her. And cheat. The cheating helped a lot.

She took the loss much better than he thought she would. Derek figured she'd run to their parents, crying about how Derek had cheated, but she didn't mention a thing. Actually, she didn't even see that mad about it. Which should have been his first clue.

Nope, she didn't tattle or get angry. Instead, she rigged the cabinet to empty when he grabbed his toothbrush, snuck her clothes into the laundry with his so he unknowingly ended up doing part of her laundry and slipped a block of wood into his chair making it rock unevenly for three weeks until he figured out what was going on.

She was crafty. Devious. It was such a shame… only when she was fighting Derek did he get to see the qualities about her that he really admired.

He smirked to himself. He'd just have to find ways to get into more fights with her.


	9. Marti the Monster

Marti the Monster

Derek walked Sandra home after his parents caught them making out on the couch. (After all, it was the gentlemanly thing to do.) When he got home, he found his dad and Nora cuddling on the couch and made a beeline for the stairs.

"Hey, Derek," his dad called.

"Yeah?" he cringed, expecting trouble from being caught on the couch with Sandra.

"Check on Marti before you go to bed, okay?"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Derek replied, "Yeah, no problem. Night, folks."

Marti wasn't in her bed when he checked so he went to ask Casey where she could be. He found them both sacked out on Casey's bed, arms wrapped around each other.

He couldn't help but smile softly. Marti was peaceful for once, and Casey, with her hair all awry and the obvious victim of a Marti Makeover, looked sweet and content. Leaning over, he pulled the blanket up to tuck them in.

Casey stirred and blinked blearily at him. "Hey," she murmured, obviously a little confused.

He resisted the urge to brush her hair out of her face. "Hey," he whispered back, sitting on the edge of her bed.

"What time is it?" she asked, her voice soft and hoarse from sleep.

"Just after midnight." He tipped his head toward Marti. "You want me to move her back to her own bed?"

Casey smiled tiredly. "No, she's fine. We played beauty shop."

Quirking an eyebrow at her, Derek chuckled. "Yeah, I noticed."

"It was fun," she said. "How was your date with Sandra?"

"Also fun. She's a great girl."

"Yeah, she is. Be nice to her, okay?" Ordinarily Derek would bristle over something like that, but he could tell Casey didn't really mean anything by it. Besides, it was too late to pick a fight over something stupid like that.

"Yes, ma'am." And when she giggled quietly at that his heart may have skipped a beat, but he'd never admit it. He bent over and kissed Marti on the cheek before lightly ruffling Casey's hair. "Night, Case."

Her eyes were already closed and she was falling back to sleep as she muttered, "Night, Derek."

After softly closing the door, Derek leaned against it for a minute.

He might be in real trouble, here.


	10. Sweet Misery

Sweet Misery

The concert was actually kind of cool. They ended up going with the 'rents after all. Casey pointed out that it was a really nice thing that they had done and that they weren't going to be able to go otherwise. Besides, it was clear that Casey and Derek trying to worm out of the concert had hurt their feelings and while Derek could live with that, Casey really couldn't. It was like the night they met all over again.

Casey insisted on having final wardrobe approval for both parents that night and it was a good thing, because his dad was trying to squeeze himself into an old pair of leather pants and Nora wanted to wear one of Casey's dresses. No concert would have been worth the humiliation of that.

And, it turned out, their parents weren't so oblivious after all. Because they had gotten themselves two tickets pretty far back and got Derek and Casey two floor tickets. At first Derek and Casey had glowered at each other, but, surprising even himself, Derek turned to her right before the White Stripes took the stage.

"Look, just for tonight, so we can enjoy the concert – truce?"

Casey studied him for a second, before cautiously shaking the hand he held out. "Truce."

A second later the audience around them exploded as Jack and Meg came out and started rocking. The concert was fantastic and pretty quick everyone on the floor was out of their seats and dancing.

Casey bounced and swayed to the music and, more and more, Derek found himself watching her instead of the concert. Her hair swung behind her and her arms were raised above her head, and for the first time since he knew her, she let herself completely go.

When they played the opening riff for "Fell in Love with a Girl", Casey shrieked and turned to Derek, ecstatic. "I LOVE THIS SONG!" she yelled. She began jumping up and down, her head bobbing along to the music and all he could do was stare.

Then, she was grabbing his arm and shouting, "Come on, Derek, dance!" And any other time he would have said that he doesn't dance or teased her about her dancing (not that there was anything to tease her about). But seeing as they had called a truce, he began bouncing along with her.

There was an older couple, probably late-20s, early-30s standing next to them and Derek saw the girl nudge the guy and grin in their direction. The guy glanced over at them and smiled at the girl and kissed her on the forehead before turning his attention back to the concert. Derek went back to dancing with Casey and forgot all about it.

When the concert was over, Derek found himself standing beside the guy again, outside of the woman's washroom, waiting for Casey.

"Good concert," the guy remarked.

Derek nodded. "Yeah, awesome."

"Your girlfriend's cute. Quite a dancer. You're a lucky guy."

And, for reasons that he could not explain, instead of setting him straight, Derek just nodded. "Yeah, I am."

The guy's girlfriend exited at that point and the guy looped his arm around her and said, "You reminded us of what we used to be like when we were your age." Then he winked and they strolled off.

Derek stared after them, all sorts of unhealthy thoughts swirling in his brain, which is how Casey found him a minute later. She smiled at him and asked, "Ready?" before walking towards the exit.

"Not even a little," Derek muttered as he followed her into the night.


	11. Babe Raider

Babe Raider

He had never threatened so many guys as he did the day that Casey dressed up as Babe Raider. First of all, the fact that he had to threaten anyone at all should say something about just how hot Casey looked that day. But it was a strictly observed section of the male code that you didn't make horny comments about a dude's sister when he was within earshot. And that was basically all he heard that morning. Well, along with the wolf whistles.

Even guys who weren't making comments were saying plenty with their eyes. Including Sam. Especially Sam. Only Ralph seemed to stay respectful. To be fair, though, he still wasn't sure that Ralph really understood that Casey was his stepsister. They'd had the conversation a couple of times, but because of the whole switcheroo that happened the first time Casey came to London, for some reason Ralph still thought that Casey might be _his _stepsister. Both Derek and Sam spent quite a bit of time explaining why that just wasn't true, but Ralph still seemed a little fuzzy on the whole subject.

It was like she was messing with him. Like his world didn't center around her enough – no, now he had to get rid of all of his posters and "sexist" games so that she truly was the only girl he could think about. And then she had to go flaunting herself at school, making sure she was the only thing that the guys there were thinking about, too.

Luckily, Derek's untouchable status made it pretty easy to quell most of the talk. For ninety percent of the school's population, all he had to say was a sharp, "Hey!" or a slightly pissed sounding "Come on," and any open lusting died right down. The guys he had the hardest time with were the upperclassmen on the Varsity football and hockey teams. With them he had to actually physically threaten them and that actually only worked on about half.

(Let's face it, Derek was never going to be too intimidating to the Varsity linemen who had about six inches and eighty pounds on him.)

Thankfully by the end of lunch Casey was wearing Emily's cardigan over her outfit and the whistles and comments died down. She was still earning some looks, but Derek knew that trying to stop that was a losing battle. Still, he glared at everyone he caught staring at her.

Sam just laughed at him. "What is your problem, man? What do you care if guys are interested in Casey?"

"I don't have a problem," Derek spluttered. "She's just… she's being a distraction. And she's so obviously just trying to up her popularity. Plus, she's a hypocrite!"

"So tell her that."

"I did."

"Well, then, like I said, what do you care if some guys are interested in her?"

"I don't care," Derek growled.

Sam rolled his eyes, and got up, taking his tray with him. "Coulda fooled me."

And the really confusing part was that it shouldn't bother him. If anything, shouldn't he want Casey to get a boyfriend, just so that she'd have someone besides him to harass and nag? There were plenty of loser-y guys at school that would be just up Casey's alley. Like Schlepper. She and Schlepper would be like a match made in nerd heaven. Or Tinker. That kid was the only person he knew that was more of a keener than Casey.

But even the thought of her with those guys…

This was all her fault. Her and her stupid outfit. She had him all confused.

He had to go home for some quality couch time. A good game of Babe Raider would sort everything out.


	12. All Systems No Go

All Systems No Go

Sometimes Derek wondered if his dad knew him at all. Really, assigning Derek and Casey to work together cleaning? How was that ever going to end well? Anyone else in the house could guess exactly how it would turn out. (Fighting, wrestling, and a bigger mess than when they started. But he had to admit, he had more fun sword-fighting with Casey than with anyone else. She went for the kill.)

He also left Derek in charge while he and Nora went bowling with the Davises. And he let Amy stay. Which was just more proof that George didn't know his son at all - anyone who knew Derek would know he'd see that as a prime opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

Or at least he would have been able to if it wasn't for Casey.

(And maybe George knew that all along which is why he had no problem leaving Derek in charge with a girl present.)

The stupid thing was, Casey didn't even have to try to ruin his date. All she did was come down into the kitchen to have a bowl of ice cream, reading some book that Amy was also in the middle of reading. And from that moment on, it would've been fairer to say that Amy was on a date with Casey, not Derek. After they finished exclaiming over the book in Casey's hand they started talking about another book by the same author, which led to another book, which led to their favourite movies and TV shows and sooner or later, it became clear that Amy and Casey were soul-mates and that Derek had just been standing in their way.

(And what was up with him suddenly dating girls who liked reading and had social consciences? Another ugly side-affect of living with Casey. He needed to go back to his bimbo status quo as soon as possible.)

Even if he had wanted to stand in their way, he couldn't, because he was the babysitter that night and Marti was all high on bubble bath fumes and Lizzie and Edwin had gotten into the coffee ice cream and the less said about that, the better. So, Casey was free to take up all of Amy's attention and he didn't have a free minute to stop her.

By the time Amy's older brother came to pick her up, she was making plans to meet up with Casey the next day and gave her a hug before vaguely waving at him and saying, "I'll maybe see you around, Derek," as she ran out the door.

All he could do was stare incredulously at Casey. How was it possible that she had gotten further with Amy that night than he had?

Casey noticed him staring at her and asked, "What?"

He just shook his head in disbelief and walked away. He could have predicted that Casey would be an obstacle in his dating life (because she loved nothing more than to make sure he was having a rotten day), but he never thought she'd be competition.

(And if he chose to ignore the fact that this could have been avoided if he hadn't asked out a girl who was just like Casey, well, that was his own business.)


	13. Male Code Blue

**A/N - So here's the first season done. This was at times both much harder and much easier than I thought it would be. As I go forward (because I will be going forward), I'm going to start writing these in the production order of the episodes, rather than the order in which they aired. I ran into some continuity difficulty while writing these and writing them in the order in which they were intended to air would eliminate a lot of that. I can't promise to finish the whole series, but I do have ideas for episodes in the 4th season, so it's a very real possibility. **

**I'd also like to thank everyone who has been commenting: EvertonAngel, , EreshkigalGirl, s girl, xxoppisitesXattractxx, mimibear, lanter, hushhushyou, rumoredreader, CharryBlossom, -Epitome of Bold, Leaf25, Ghostwriter, Frogster, Cupcakeslam23, kthxilyxx, kmr04. I don't write to get feedback, I do it because I love it, but getting sweet feedback like yours makes me love it all the more. Thank you.**

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**Male Code Blue**

He still doesn't know why he let Sam walk up those stairs. Here was his opportunity both to make Casey miserable and save Sammy from the popularity black hole known as his stepsister, and he let it pass him by.

But then, it seemed like Sam didn't really appreciate Derek's attempts to save him from himself. He wrestled him for God's sake. Sam hadn't wrestled Derek for anything since they were eight and they came across Ashley Jenkins' lost tabby on the way home from school. Ashley had promised a kiss to any boy who returned it and, as she was the queen bee of the third graders, those were highly coveted lips. That time, though, their wrestling scared the cat off and if Derek remembered correctly it was Schlepper who ended up getting the coveted kiss.

When he finally let Sam go up the stairs, part of him wanted to spy on them from the stairwell. But that was the small masochistic part of Derek that he rarely listened to. So, instead, he went into the living room and was forced to imagine what was going on. Would they hug? Kiss? Would Casey take Sam by the hand and lead him into her room? Derek gave himself a shake. No, thankfully Casey wasn't like that, and what was probably happening was some bad rip-off of one of those teen romance novels that Casey pretended she didn't read but everyone knew she was addicted to.

Later, after the three of them sat at the table and Derek grudgingly gave his consent, watching the two of them moon over each other and feeling two pairs of feet playfully nudge his own, he sat in the living room alone in the dark, trying to figure things out. He supposed he should be happy for Sam. The truth was, Sammy wasn't a player like Derek was, and his experience with girls was pretty limited. And, he knew his friend better than anyone and he could see how happy being with Casey made him. So if Derek was really as good a friend as he claimed to be, shouldn't that make him happy, too?

And with Casey, he supposed maybe he felt a little jealous because here she was, taking over yet another aspect of his life. Sam was his, dammit. He knew everything about Sam, he'd seen him through his first unrequited crush, the six months that his parents separated, a broken arm when they were twelve, and the disastrous hair cut that had him wearing toques for the entire year.

But he didn't feel happy for Sam and he didn't feel jealous of Casey. For Sam, all he really felt is betrayed. Like his best friend had just punched him in the gut. And it wasn't fair to Sam, because he really hadn't done anything wrong except get a crush on a girl.

And as for Casey, she had him feeling guilty again. The look on her face after he tricked Sam into lying about his real feelings for her… Derek thought the triumph would be sweet, and, for a minute it was. But then he saw her face fall and the dejected slump of her shoulders. There was nothing sweet about victory then.

So, he let them be happy. It was the least he could do, right? And he figured, maybe if Casey was happy, she'd loosen up a bit and he wouldn't have to deal with shrieks of "De-rek!" every time he did something that didn't have the Casey seal of approval.

Besides, there was this thing nagging at him, this story of Marti's that she loved to have Derek read to her before bed. A little girl had made a pet of a wild bird, but the bird was miserable in the cage and even though the little girl wanted to keep the bird, it hurt her to see it so sad. So she let the bird out of the cage and the girl's grandfather told her not to worry. That if you really loved something, you had to set it free, but that if it loved you, someday it would come back.

It didn't make any sense, but Derek couldn't get that little girl and her bird out of his mind that night. The book just ended with the bird flying away and he couldn't help but wonder if it ever flew back to the little girl. He hoped that it did.


End file.
